Holding My Last Breath
by Todd's Pet
Summary: Inspired by the song of the same title by Evanescence. Someone said it was about fear of old age - I saw it more as about her faith in her wraith's love for her making her passing easy and being able to live on in him forever


Holding My Last Breath

_Hold on to me love, you know I can't stay long_

_All I wanted to say was I love you and I'm not afraid._

_I'll miss the winter, a world of fragile things_

_Look for me in the white forest hiding in a hollow tree_

_I know you hear me – I can taste it in your tears._

_Holding my last breath_

_Safe inside myself are all my thoughts of you._

_Sweet rapture, life, it ends here tonight._

_Closing your eyes, you pray your dreams will leave you here,_

_But still you wake and know the truth: no one's there._

_Say goodnight – don't be afraid – calling me, holding me, as you fade to black._

To the rest of her race he is the stuff of nightmares, but in her eyes he is everything she ever dreamed of. He is a predator, yes, and her kind is his prey. But she is not afraid of him. How can she be afraid of someone who makes her feel so alive?

She has grown to see angels in their faces – not least his. Surrounded by a halo of purest white, his features distinct and chiseled as if created by the hand of an artist, carved from the most precious of pale green jade.

Does she fear him? In the still of the night when she cannot sleep and she watches him as he lies next to her, his beautiful face in peaceful repose, how could she possibly fear him?

Yet he is her death. Not today, not next year, nor even next century, but some day. Some day he will take her life as his own.

But her entire being is already his; her beginning, her end, her very existence. He is her death. But he is also her life.

His passion is so intense it leaves her breathless. But she understands why. He can keep her alive for many hundreds of years, which to her, feels as if she will have him forever. But for him, at more than ten thousand years old, her life is a mere drop in the ocean, a fleeting moment of happiness for him that will be over all too soon.

And so she vows that she will love him enough to last a hundred lifetimes, enough to live in his heart for another ten thousand years.

oOo

They walk together in her favourite place, the White Forest, a wood permanently immersed in snow and frost that only exists for the ten days each year of the brief winter on this planet of almost eternal spring.

"Isn't it beautiful?" she sighs touching the frost tipped branches as if they might disappear under the warmth of her fingers.

"It is indeed beautiful. But fragile and fleeting… like you…" His golden reptile eyes soften and blur with a painful mixture of love and grief, as if, already, he is mourning the loss of her.

"I have a had a long and happy life with you, my love, so much longer than my natural lifespan," she tells him, touching the starburst tattoo around his left eye and letting her hand drift down the length of his long white hair.

"Is it too selfish of me to want to keep you with me forever?" he asks, "The gift of life is a double-edged sword; it binds us together like nothing else can, but eventually it becomes ineffective and I cannot stop you from dying."

"You promised that when this time came, when we knew that I had mere years left, that you would take me."

His brow knits into a frown and he lets out a soft snarl of despair. "That was before… before I grew to care about you so much that I would give my own life for just one more second with you."

"I don't want you to see me grow old and weak, to watch me die a slow and lingering death. I always knew that I wanted to die in your arms, to have your face be the last thing I ever see. That thought fills me with comfort, not dread." She kisses the corner of his eye, to erase the evidence of the tear that threatens to spill out from there. "I want you to take my last breath, my love. And after I am gone you will find me here, in the White Forest, I'll be all around you whenever you need comfort."

He holds her in his arms and they look deep into each other's eyes, as they have always done when he does this. But this time she knows the ecstasy his feeding hand gives her will not waken her, renewed and refreshed to live another lifetime.

"So, this is goodbye, my love," she sighs.

"No, not goodbye," he whispers gently, "Just say goodnight. Know that I love you and don't be afraid."

She holds her last breath as long as she can, watching his beloved face, then at last she lets it go in a soft sigh. She closes her eyes and, content that they will live in each other for eternity, she lets her soul move on.


End file.
